


Beyond Antares

by supercali_expiali



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Christine is Important and Deserves Better than JJ Abrams, Drinking, F/F, First Meetings, Moving On, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Shore Leave, Strangers to Lovers, They Don't Know They Work Together, Work In Progress, post STID
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4004635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercali_expiali/pseuds/supercali_expiali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uhura stares at this creature. This impossible, unstoppable creature who insists on interrupting her pity-fest. “Do you mind? I’m wallowing here.” The other woman laughs. </p><p>“Look,” she sobers, so fast that Uhura wonders if maybe she’s wallowing too. In her own, completely unhinged way. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I came here to drink so much that I forget my own name and I saw you sitting here alone and thought, ‘I’d like to forget her name too.’”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond Antares

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I hated what was done to my beautiful Christine Chapel in STID and this is how I handled it. Updates (if they end up happening) will most likely be sporadic and unpredictable. I don't know, we'll see what happens. Anyway, Christine is queen, Uhura is fabulous, enjoy.

In another time, in another place, in another universe, Nyota Uhura would be relaxing in her quarters listening to Spock absentmindedly play her favorite song on the Vulcan lute. She’d be brushing her hair and singing along. It would be romantic and disgusting and everything she never knew she wanted.

But this day is not that time, not that place, and not that universe.

Three days ago, James Kirk woke up nearly two weeks after dying.

Part of her, a large part of her, is over-joyed. The _Enterprise_ , no matter how upgraded she’ll get in the new reconstruction, wouldn’t be the same without her captain. But the rest of her…

She almost wishes he stayed dead.

It’s an awful, terrible, jealous feeling, but Uhura just can’t shake it. The worst part is that it isn’t Kirk’s fault. Not in the least. It’s Spock’s. Or possibly hers… it’s confusing, but painfully simple: Spock doesn’t love her.

Uhura grabs her luggage and forces her way off the shuttlecraft. She tells herself she isn’t running away, not really, just… taking a breather. Clearing her head. Enjoying a much needed shore leave. Of course, in order for it to be shore leave, she would need an actual ship to _leave_ , not a mass of scrap metal.

Actually, this is Khan’s fault, when she really thinks about it. Which she does. Extensively. Over several alcoholic beverages. If he never ruined everything and crippled the _Enterprise,_ forcing Kirk and his damn hero complex to go and sacrifice himself for his crew… No. By that thinking, it’s Marcus’ fault.

Uhura rests her elbows on the bar and stares into her drink like it’ll magically give her the answers. It stays stubbornly silent so she tosses it back and signals for another. She’s probably racking up quite the tab by this time. She frowns as the bartender fills the tumbler in front of her. This isn’t like her, damn it. She doesn’t drink because she’s hurt or angry. She drinks to have _fun_. It’s getting harder to remember that.

Spock will be happier with him anyway.

The glass of whatever she ordered is half way to her lips when it’s stolen from her. “Excuse me?” Uhura says, whipping around to face the thief. “I _paid_ for that.”

“Thanks,” a cheery blonde woman winks before drinking the entire glass. “I’ll try to return the favor sometime.” Uhura immediately dislikes her.

“Don’t bother,” she says, trying to get the bartender’s attention. He gives her a faintly concerned look, but fills her glass.

“Bad day, huh?” the stranger continues, sitting as close to Uhura as she can while obeying the laws of physics. Uhura scoots to the other side of her barstool. “You wanna talk about it?”

Uhura stares at this creature. This impossible, unstoppable creature who insists on interrupting her pity-fest. “Do you mind? I’m wallowing here.” The woman laughs.

“Look,” she sobers, so fast that Uhura wonders if maybe she’s wallowing too. In her own, completely unhinged way. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I came here to drink so much that I forget my own name and I saw you sitting here alone and thought, ‘I’d like to forget her name too.’”

Uhura blinks. “Are you—are you _hitting_ on me?” Now that would just take the cake.

“Was it not obvious?” The woman smiles, although this time she seems to find the decency to look sheepish. “I’m Christine. I probably should have started with that. And you are?”

“Still wallowing.”

“Noted,” Christine nods, playing with the empty tumbler she stole from Uhura. After a minute of peace and quiet (Uhura suspects the woman can’t go a full two minutes without saying something), she says, “So can I buy you a drink?”

Uhura looks at her empty glass, thinks of her growing tab, looks back at Christine’s open, hopeful expression, and decides to hell with it. “Why not.” It’s not like she has anything else to do tonight. Meanwhile, Christine is already waving the bartender over.

“You know,” Christine says after Uhura’s empty glass is replaced by a Klabnian Fire Tea (which Uhura hasn’t had since her Academy days and as soon as she tastes it, she remembers _why_ ). “I’m putting my best moves on you and I still don’t know your name.”

Uhura almost tells her to get lost, but hell, maybe she _is_ feeling a little lonely because what comes out of her mouth almost sounds encouraging. “Technically, you never asked for my name.” Christine grins, probably because Uhura didn’t instantly dump the drink over her head.

“An oversight on my part,” she leans in to murmur conspiratorially. “What’s your name, stranger?”

Uhura pauses, her last name on the tip of her tongue, then changes her mind at the last second. “Nyota. My name is Nyota.” It feels nice, strangely enough, to be unburdened by her Starfleet title. If only for a little while.

“That’s beautiful.”

“I know.”

“You’re not a very approachable person, Nyota.”

“And you, Christine, think too highly of yourself to be likeable.”

The women find themselves grinning at each other. Uhura wonders if this is normal. She’s been with Spock so long, it’s hard to remember how normal, non-Vulcan flirting works. (She suspects they’re doing it wrong, but it seems to be working anyway).

Christine breaks the silence. “So wallowing, huh?” Uhura frowns. And to think she almost forgot for a moment.

“It’s really not any of your business,” she snaps, knowing she’s not being entirely fair to Christine, but on some level she’s done caring. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Don’t mention it,” Christine shrugs. She doesn’t even seem fazed by Uhura’s apparent mood swing. “You come here often, then?”

“You’re a walking cliché.”

“Rude.”

Uhura is surprised into laughter. “You _stole_ my drink!”

“But I bought you a new one,” Christine whines, pouting her lips prettily. “Come on, let loose just a little bit. I promise, whatever it is, you can wallow about it tomorrow. But tonight? Have some _fun_.”

The pushy woman has a point, though Uhura hates to admit it. Tomorrow, she’ll wake up and Spock will still be in love with the captain and unable to vocalize it because he’s so far only mastered showing rage, grief, and occasionally fondness. Tomorrow, she’ll still feel guilty about hating Kirk for something he has no control over. Basically, tomorrow will suck. But tonight…

“Ugh,” Uhura eventually gives in. “Fine, but—“ she interrupts Christine’s (very mature) victory dance, “— _but_ I have three rules.”

“Boo,” Christine rolls her eyes. “Okay, let’s hear ‘em.”

“No last names, no backstories, and,” she meets Christine’s eyes, “this last one is very important so listen closely: no more Fire Teas.”

The other woman slowly grins and Uhura can’t help but wonder what, exactly, she got herself into. “Deal.”

 

* * *

 

It isn’t so much the headache that wakes her as it is the numbness in her left arm. Uhura wiggles it experimentally without opening her eyes and finds it pinned underneath a limp weight. She jerks into consciousness and stares at the person sharing her bed.

It’s then that she realizes neither of them wearing clothes.

Christine scrunches up her nose in annoyance at the sudden movement. “ _Shh_ ,” she murmurs, nuzzling her cold nose into Uhura’s shoulder, “’M sleeping _.”_

Uhura slowly becomes hyper-aware of everywhere they’re touching and how, oddly, she’s okay with this. It doesn’t feel like cheating, even though she never broke up with Spock, technically. She didn’t have to, he just had to look at her and she knew it was over. No, this almost feels… nice.

“This is nice,” she says, mostly to herself.

“Just _nice_?” Christine yawns, of course choosing that moment to re-enter the world of the living. “Jeez, I am off my game.”

“No,” Uhura hurries to explain, “My, er, I mean, he was never a cuddler—“ Thankfully, Christine slaps a palm over her mouth before she can say anymore.

“Shush, you,” Christine pushes a lock of tangled blonde hair behind her ears. “Can’t have you breaking your own rules, can we?” Uhura huffs, but nods in agreement, finding it hard to argue with Christine staring at her like she’s something the other woman’s never seen before. Uhura realizes she’s trailing her fingers up and down the blonde woman’s spine. She wonders how long that’s been happening.

Christine closes the gap between them, stopping less than an inch from Uhura’s lips. “You’re something else, Nyota,” she smiles. Uhura can’t help but return it.

In the end, it’s Uhura who initiates the kiss. Christine’s lips are dry, but still soft against her own, and Uhura lets her set a slow, lazy pace. She’s starting to think Christine isn’t much of a morning person. Considering they’re both already naked, the kiss is surprisingly chaste. Still, Christine doesn’t pull away from her for even a second. They’re breathing the shared air in small gasps and Uhura can’t tell if she’s feeling lightheaded from a lack of oxygen or that thing Christine does with her tongue. She isn’t in any hurry to stop and find out.

Eventually, Uhura pulls away. “You don’t happen to have any plans today, do you?”

Christine presses kisses down her neck. “Nah. You?” Uhura stifles a moan as Christine moves down, down, down and – _Oh._

“I’m sure we can think of something, _ah,_ to pass the time,” Uhura says breathlessly. Admittedly, not much coherent thought is involved.

 


End file.
